Improvement in machines for making watchrcases



CHARLES LOUIS THl-ERY.

Improvement in Machines for making Watch Cases.

Pat'ented Dec. 5,1871,

UNITED STATES PATENT QFFICE.

CHARLES LOUIS THIERY, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN MACHINES FOR MAKING WATCHrCASES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 121,474, dated December 5, 1871.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES LOUIS THIERY, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have made an invention of certain Improvements in Machinery for Producing Watch-Cases; and do hereby declare the nature of the said invention and the manner in which the same may be carried out to be ascertained in and by the following statement, due reference being had to the accompanying drawing, in which- Figure 1 is a face view. and Fig. 2 is avertical and transverse section of my improvement.

On the 18th day of January, 1870, Letters Patent of the United States were issued to me for producing the center of a watch-case in one homogeneous piece of metal, with the hinge-bearer, so called, forming it. In forming its center as stated in the specification of such patent, a sheet of metal is first reduced in a drop-press to the form of a cap, and next, in the same press with a change of mold, has impressed upon its bottom the irregularities or corrugations which constitute one-half the center when the interior dead metal is cut away, the hinge-bearer being struck up in the metal by the same mold and press. The cap, after being reduced in the press as above stated, is introduced to a suitable machine in which a roller traveling about the Walls or flange of the cap contracts such wall and produces the other half of the center. Heretofore this machine has contained no provision by which to support the hinge-bearer, as the roller performs the work of contracting the wall of the cap, and such hinge-bearer frequently becomes crushed and injured under the action of the roller.

The purpose of my present improvement is to obviate the objectionable feature in machinery, and produce a means of supporting the hingebearer under the action of the roller and retain its form intact; and to the end I make areceiver whose depression or concavity corresponds exactly to the irregularities of the outside of the cap and the hinge-bearer found thereupon, by means of which the latter is supported and its form preserved.

The drawing accompanying this specification represents at A such a receiver as I contemplate using in carrying out the invention, and this receiver consists of a circular block, B, of metal, to fit the socket of the machine, the upper face of the block being fashioned into the corrugated or irregular annular lines which impart to the blank or cap the necessary form. Upon one edge of this receiver, and intercepting some one or more of its annular corrugations a a, &c., I create a straight elevated ridge or spur, B, so disposed as to coincide with and adapt itself closely to the hinge-bearer of the cap when the latter is deposited bottom down in the receiver. The spur B supports the hinge-bearer under the powerful swagin g action of the rollers of the machine and forms part of the receiver, which constitutes the feature of my present invention, and is a very valuable adjunct to machinery for producing watch-cases, for reasons above stated.

I claim- The herein-described receiver, for purposes above stated.

CHARLES LOUIS THIERY.

Witnesses FRED. CURTIS, 

